TELFORD, Tenn. (WJHL) – Tennessee schools will be receiving TCAP test scores back for third graders at the end of the week.
Under Tennessee’s new Third Grade Retention Law, students not scoring at least proficient in the English Language Arts portion will have to repeat the grade, take summer classes or go to tutoring throughout the next school year.
Rachel Heaton, assistant principal of Grandview Elementary, says they’ve seen an increase in enrollment for third graders this year.
“And that is for the most part precautionary and being proactive and making sure that parents know ahead to block off that amount of time,” said Heaton. “In the event they were to come back and not need to attend summer school, we would remove them from that enrollment.”
Washington County Schools will have two locations for summer learning this year. One at Grandview Elementary and the other one at Boones Creek Elementary.
“We have hired a large number of teachers anticipating that we are going to be serving 200 to 250 kids at each site,” said Heaton. “That’s going to allow us to have smaller group sizes, be more individualized.”
Heaton says they’ve been working for months in preparation for summer learning.
“We’ve been working in the background for about two months, trying to make sure that we’ve got staff secured, that we have exciting experiences for our kids, different field trips and all of that good stuff for the coming summer,” said Heaton.
Heaton will be serving as the “Southside Academy’ summer school administrator, which is the Grandview Elementary location.
“We’ve got staff coming from every school on our side of the county working at our academy,” said Heaton. “And the same is happening at the ‘Northside Academy’ that’s going to be at Boones Creek.”
The Washington County Schools summer learning program will begin on June 5 and end on June 29.
Registration is still open and summer classes are completely free for county students.
